The Silence
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Elijah's sick of the silence between them.


"Hayley."

No answer.

"Hayley, can you even hear me?"

Nothing.

"Hayley, please, say something."

Silence.

Elijah released a sigh of frustration, running his hand through his previously immaculate hair and gripping a handful of the strands that rested at the top of his neck. It had been getting longer recently, just another failure on presentation for his sake. He didn't like it because it wasn't practical to have it brushing over his eyebrows and obscuring his view, not with a tiny hybrid in the compound about to reach the age of havoc.

"Hayley, please. This silence cannot last forever."

There was still no reply, and he sighed again. It was getting increasingly disheartening.

"I have something to tell you," he attempted.

But still, there was no answer. He wasn't sure what he'd done to incur this silence, but it was chilling now. She'd been cold to him in the past, as he had to her, but this was freeze that he was unprepared for. The lack of words. People had always admired her raging temper, and even he felt the same. He missed that now when she was quiet like this. No one else noticed the silence when she wasn't speaking to him. But he did.

"It's important," he continued.

Nothing. Perhaps he could earn her forgiveness somehow? Just to hear her voice. Even if she just told him that she was mad at him, to hear that he had enraged her somehow, it was better than hearing nothing. But how? She'd be horrified if he did something as conventional as bringing her flowers, now wasn't the time for an assuring rub of her shoulders and it certainly wasn't the time for a drink.

He sighed, looking up and facing her as much as he could, given the fact that she actually wasn't looking back at him. "Hayley, please?"

Again, nothing.

"Well, if you aren't going to speak to me you can at least listen."

This time the silence didn't shock him. She'd let him speak, let him say his piece. She always did. That was more familiar to him than the fact that she wasn't speaking to him in the first place.

"Hope took her first steps this morning."

The lack of reaction to that statement was heart breaking but he continued.

"It was actually rather amusing." It was at the time, but not now. "She went four steps first time, from me to Niklaus, but she fell as she reached him. She tried to grab for something to steady herself and ended up grasping the string around his neck, causing them to bump heads. I honestly don't know which of them was more unsettled by it."

Silence was the sound that he hated most in the world. Where was the Hayley that would dote on her daughter's every movement?

He lowered his voice again, shaking his head. "I am sorry that you had to miss such an important milestone. Rebekah filmed it, but…it is no substitute." He knew that he wasn't going to get an answer, even now, and he stood from the ground.

There were flowers in his hand, even though he knew that she'd hate the color. Pink. "I got you these," he offered weakly. "I know these aren't your favourite, but today isn't my usual day to come here." She didn't reach for them, naturally, so he put them down before her, with no nearby surface for them to rest on, carefully placing them where they wouldn't be damaged.

He stood before her, looking down with a choking sensation in his throat that still floored him every time he came here, trying to get through to her, each time he left with no reply. "We miss you, Hayley," he whispered. "Hope misses her mother. We won't give up until we find a way to bring you back…we just need a sign from you that you're still there to be saved."

He nodded to himself one final time, his head still dipping as if for a kiss that wouldn't be returned, and pulled away to return to that car. He left behind the words that were right before him the entire time, words that didn't need to be spoken as they were etched in stone for the world to read, words that had been agonised over for days, and words that her daughter would one day read too.

**_Hayley Marshall (Andrea Lebonair)_**  
><strong><em>Beloved mother of Hope<em>**  
><strong><em>d. 1101/2014_**  
><strong><em>Sleep well, little wolf<em>**


End file.
